'Tis sixty years since first beneath this tree
I stood a boy of ten,
And here what time has left, or made of me,
I stand again.
...
* * *
And his legs carried it like a long fork
Reachd all the way from Chichester to York
From York all across Scotland to the Sea
This was a Man of Men as seems to me
5 Not only in his Mouth his own Soul lay...
And this of all my Hopes
This, is the silent end
Bountiful colored, my Morning rose
Early and sere, its end
Never Bud from a Stem
Stepped with so gay a Foot
Never a Worm so confident
Bored at so brave a Root
It is not the fear of death
That damps my brow;
It is not for another breath
I ask thee now;
I can die with lip unstirr'd
And a quiet heart—
Let but this prayer be heard
Ere I depart.
I can give up my mother's look—
My sister's kiss;
I can...
The Angel[1]
I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?
And that I was a maiden queen
Guarded by an angel mild.
Witless woe was ne'er beguil'd!
And I wept both night & day,
And he wiped my tears away,...
* * *
The Angel that presided oer my birth
Said Little creature formd of Joy & Mirth
Go love without the help of any King on Earth
Angels in the early morning
May be seen the dews among,
Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying :
Do the buds to them belong ?
Angels when the sun is hottest
May be seen the sands among,
Stooping, plucking, sighing, flying...
* * *
Anger & Wrath my bosom rends
I thought them the Errors of friends
But all my limbs with warmth glow
I find them the Errors of the foe
Our gloves are stiff with the frozen blood,
Our furs with the drifted snow,
As we come in with the seal—the seal!
In from the edge of the floe.
Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq!
And the yelping dog-teams go;
And the long whips crack, and the men come back,
Back from...
Still apprehending death and pain,
To whom great God shall I complain?
To whom pour out my tears
But to the pow'r that gave me breath,
The arbiter of life and death,
...